The Four Helps to Faith

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Remember that the people to whom the author of Hebrews is writing are people who are struggling because the Christian life has gotten hard for them. They're being persecuted. They've got difficult questions. They've got unanswered prayers. Some of them are barely hanging on to their faith. So in chapter 12, the writer of Hebrews offers them four helps for their faith in difficult times. Welcome to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of J.D. Greer.

I'm your host, Molly Widdowitch. Today we're talking about a relevant question that a lot of Christians might be afraid to ask. How do I trust God when I don't feel like He's there? When a prayer goes unanswered or you just don't feel very connected to God, trust can be hard to come by.

But throughout our study of Hebrews, we're finding that there are reasons to believe. Today, Pastor J.D. gives us four reasons that will bolster our belief, hopefully drawing us all nearer to see the God who saves and delivers. We pray you hear His voice today as Pastor J.D. opens God's Word right now.

All right, Hebrews chapter 12, if you have your Bible, Hebrews chapter 12. As you're turning there, let me ask you a question to consider, and that is, what is it that you consider to be the most valuable thing in your life? What's your most valuable personal quality? If you had to finish this sentence, how would you finish it? The most important thing that I possess is blank.

What would go in that blank for you? According to the writer of Hebrews, the most valuable thing in your life, bar none, is faith. Faith is the belief that God, what God has revealed about Himself in the Bible is true and that following Him is worth it. Without faith, the writer of Hebrews says, you will never please God because you will never go all the way with Jesus. You'll never fully commit yourself to the mission. You won't obey Him in the hard areas when it doesn't make sense.

You'll never make it through the dark chapters in your life. Remember that the people to whom the author of Hebrews is writing are people who are struggling because the Christian life has gotten hard for them. They're being persecuted. They've got difficult questions. They've got unanswered prayers. Some of them are barely hanging on to their faith. So in chapter 12, the writer of Hebrews offers them four helps for their faith in difficult times. Four helps for their faith in difficult times.

Look at how he sets it up. Chapter 12, verse 1. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. The writer here says that the Christian life is like a marathon. And the word that he uses for the word race, the word that's translated race is the word agon, which, by the way, is where we get our word, English word, agony. The point is the Christian life is hard.

Agon. It's hard. For many of you, that's right where you are, right? I mean, you are in a difficult chapter of your life. You thought that the Christian life was supposed to be all warm fuzzies and abundant life, and that's just not what you feel right now. And some of you are wondering, what's wrong? I mean, why do I feel this way?

It started off one way. It started off on an emotional high, but now you're just in a very difficult chapter, and like these people that he's writing to, you're having trouble hanging on. So he gives us four motivations to keep going.

Here they are. Number one, he tells us to consider the witnesses. To consider the witnesses. You notice the first word in verse 1 is therefore. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, now every pastor I have ever heard in my life, whenever he comes to the word therefore, always makes a joke, and he always acts like he's the one that made it up. Anytime you see the word therefore in the Bible, you always ought to look and see what it's, actually your pastor makes that joke too, all right? So you ought to always look and see what it's there for, because therefore always points backwards.

So in this case, what is it pointing backwards to? The answer is Hebrews chapter 11, to the list of people that he has given in Hebrews 11 who risked all of it on God and his promises. He summarizes that list of people this way in verse 32. He says, through faith those people, many of them quenched the power of fire, they escaped the edge of the sword, they were made strong out of weakness, they became mighty in war, they put foreign armies to flight. Others, however, suffered mocking and flogging, even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. Which means that some of these people, through faith, asked God to do the impossible and God did it. And Daniel goes to sleep in the lion's den and God preserves him in the lion's den. Shatter at me, shatter the bed and go walk through fire. David confronts a giant and kills him. Joshua surrounds Jericho and knocks the walls down. There were people that prayed and God did impossible things to them, but then there was other people who exercised the same faith and God didn't show up, or at least it didn't seem like he did, because God didn't deliver them out of the fire.

In fact, one of them, Isaiah, got caught in two in the middle of a log. Where was God when Isaiah was asking him for deliverance? And what I told you last week is based on that, listen, if you require any earthly validation of your faith, you're not going to make it. If you require any earthly validation for your faith, you're not going to make it because God, sometimes in his power, will come through and he will do a miracle and other times it will seem like he is totally absent. And I really need you to think about that because some of you do require earthly validation for your faith. And the reason I know that is because the moment things start going, don't start going the way that you think they ought to go, your hands are in the air saying, God, what's wrong with you?

Why don't you love me? Do you even exist? If you require earthly validation, you're not going to make it.

These Old Testament saints are people just like you with the questions that you have. And he says that they are like people in a marathon who started before us and now they're standing along the sides as we run, telling us, keep going. I know you feel like you're about to die, but you can make it. It's worth it. You'll make it. I made it. That's that concept of witnesses. They're standing there saying, you can make it. I made it.

Just look at me. I had the same questions you did. And now you can see from your perspective that God had a plan. He was bringing Jesus out of Israel.

But we couldn't understand it, but he was doing it. And if he was doing it with us, he's doing it with you. So that's your first help to faith is that you should consider the witnesses. Here's your second help to faith. It's in verse two. Fix your eyes on Jesus, looking unto Jesus.

In Greek, what it literally says there is look away to Jesus as if look off into the distance. It's not something, listen, that you look at him doing right now. That's very important. Not something you're looking at him doing now. You're looking out of your pain and out of your darkness away to two things about him.

The first is, if you take notes, put this down. A, his promise. Look to his promise. He is the founder and perfecter or completer of our faith. Jesus is the one who started the process of your faith. He is the one who will finish the process of your faith.

The cross shows you how much he has invested in you. Let me just tell you, as your pastor, that totally takes the pressure off of me. Because sometimes coming into the weekend, I'm gonna be like, oh my gosh, what am I gonna say to these people that's gonna change their life?

What am I gonna say that's gonna lift them out of this and out of that? And then I just stop and remember, I didn't start it. I didn't start it. I don't finish it. I'm not the author of your faith. I'm not the perfecter of it.

Jesus is the one that began it. He's the one that will complete it. He might use me a little bit in the process, but ultimately what's going on in your life is up to him, not up to me. And that takes the pressure off of you, too. Because there are some of you that are looking at your life right now in your life, but I don't understand how I'm ever gonna get out of this. I don't understand how this is ever gonna change. God has showed you it will change through the cross and the resurrection. So when you wanna give up, don't give up.

Because it wasn't your idea to begin it in the first place. You see, when you first start to walk with God, I found this to be completely, almost 100% true. When you first start walking with God, you tend to think of it as if it's all your idea. Oh, I started this, and I decided I was gonna go to church, and I decided this over here, and I decided I was gonna make this decision. The longer you walk with God, I promise you, those of you that are new Christians, the longer you walk with God, the more you will look back and see that God was the one who was doing it the entire time. He was the one that first arranged things so that you would have an interest in it. He was the one that planted that seed of faith in you. And that brings me such comfort because I know that the cross shows me that what God started, God will finish.

Charles Spurgeon, one of my preaching heroes, said it this way. Listen to the voice of the Lord speak. I will help you. It is a small thing for me, your God, to help you.

Consider what I've already done. What? Not help you. I bought you with my blood. What?

Not help you. I died for you. Since I have done the greater, will I not also do the less?

God, who is infinite in power, who brought back Jesus' dead, lifeless body from the grave, is at work in you, and he can bring your life back from the ashes too. So let's skip. There's actually a great one in verse two.

We're gonna skip it and wait to the end. So let's go to verse three. Second thing he tells you about Jesus, verse three. Look to Jesus, not just his promise, but consider him who endured such from sin or such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

Write this down. His experience. His experience. Consider the hostility against Jesus when he was on earth.

Right? I mean, sometimes I listen to these critiques that people make of us as a church or as people who believe the Bible and, I mean, you start reading them and I get discouraged. We're ignorant because we believe that a personal, intelligent God created and rules the world and establishes the standards for what are right and wrong. Christopher Hitchens, the late Christopher Hitchens, says that he thinks religion should be treated with ridicule, hatred, and contempt. And so anytime you see a believer, he says you ought to ridicule them and hold them in contempt because they are acting in a way that is insane and have lost their mind.

Sam Harris says that the quote, the problem with Christianity is that it allows people to believe in mass what only idiots or lunatics could believe in isolation. Richard Dawkins says that we're guilty. We, right, parents in this church, we are guilty of child abuse.

That what we teach our children is worse than sexual abuse and we ought to have our children taken away from us. Or I read some editorial in the New York Times that says that we are hateful people because we believe what God says about right and wrong. And there's always, listen, there's always things that we can learn from and even unfair critiques. You've got to have a posture of humility that says, yeah, I mean, this is wrong about me and I'm willing to listen to people even that have a hateful spirit. But I also often remember the words of Jesus in John 16, they hated me, they'll hate you. In fact, when you should get worried is when they don't hate you because you're not better than me.

And if they don't hate you, that means you're probably nothing like me. You're listening to a message in our teaching series called Christ is Better here on Summit Life. You know, we are all prone to drift spiritually. And when that happens, we lose sight of God's greater plan and purpose for our lives. The writer of Hebrews can't promise us that everything is always going to go right.

But what he can tell us is that Christ is better than anything else you can obtain on earth. Our new resource this month is a 10-part Bible study that includes interactive questions and examination of the scripture, which then will help us look closer at our own hearts. We'd like to encourage you to reserve your copy today by calling 866-335-5220 or visit us online at jdgrier.com. Thanks for being with us today.

Now, let's return for the conclusion of today's teaching. Here's Pastor JD. Verse four, the author basically says, at least you haven't died yet, be encouraged. You see that in verse four? The author says, at least you haven't died yet, so look away to Jesus because the cross shows you that he's committed to seeing this thing through. The resurrection shows you that he is able to see it through.

The cross shows you that the pain you are experiencing now is to be expected, but don't lose heart because God only brings the power of resurrection out of the pain of the cross. I am talking to some people in here this weekend that are about to give up. I know it. Don't do it. Don't do it because in a sense, listen, you're being asked to run a race that's already been won. It's already been won. He is the author. He is the finisher.

He's already won the race. He's already showed you what he brings out of the cross. So I know that you feel like the cross is pressing down on you.

I know you feel the opposition. I know you feel like it's dark, but you can be confident that what you're experiencing is the normal thing for a follower of Jesus and that what God started in you, he is going to finish and bring all the way to resurrection. That's your second help to faith. Here's your third help to faith. Verse five, have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My sons do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves, chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure.

God, good news, is treating you as sons. Jump down to verse 11, for the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. 12, therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees. Write down your third help. First one was consider, the witness to the second one was fix your eyes on Jesus. Third one, trust the fatherly sovereignty of God.

Number three, trust the fatherly sovereignty of God in your life. Now, there's actually two metaphors that are at work in these verses, which my English professor told me that you're not supposed to do, but when the Holy Spirit is inspiring you, you can get away with it, all right? Here's the first metaphor that he uses in these verses. It's that of a coach. In many ways, God is like a trainer, a coach. See the word trained in verse 11? That is the word gymnazzo, from which we get our word gymnasium or gymnastics. That's right.

There is a sense in which God is working in your life like a coach. The way that a muscle grows, the way working out works, is a muscle grows as you break it down. But after you break it down, your body rebuilds that same muscle stronger.

Now, here's the thing. If you work out, when you're being worked out, you don't feel stronger. You feel weaker. You feel like you're weaker because your body is being broken down, but then your body rebuilds that same weak muscle stronger. Same with God. The muscle of your faith will never grow if it's not tested and broken down. And here's the thing. It doesn't always make sense to you when it's happening. I'm talking to a generation of people that have seen Karate Kid.

Any children of the 80s here? Miyagi. You don't understand it.

Well, wax on, wax off. What's it all about? I don't get it. But that's because Miyagi knows what's coming, even when you don't. So he has you doing things that don't make sense because he's preparing you for things that you don't know are coming. Or this week, there was a special on Michael Phelps. And one of these medals, they showed this little clip where they were talking about four years ago when he won, they were talking about four years ago when he won. There was this unusual situation that he explained he could only done had his coach done something for him. In the middle of his training, he said that his coach reaches down, grabs his goggles off of him as he's doing a lap, takes his goggles off, and just stomps on them. Just completely, you know, malforms them. He puts them back on his face.

They don't fit. He says, now swim another two laps. His eyes fill up with, you know, his goggles filled with sea.

Right? And so, why would a coach do that? Because you always get to wear your goggles. Well, something happens in the 2008 Olympics where one of his goggles, you might remember this, opened up and he gets water in there and he has to swim the last lap blind. He can't see anything because his eyes are filled with water.

And he gets out of the water and he opens up his eyes and all this water pulls out. And I was expecting him to say something like, I used the force, you know, I couldn't see, but I just used the force. But he said, I counted the strokes.

I counted the strokes because my coach had put me in a situation like that where it might happen. And so, when it happened, I was prepared. You have a coach that knows what is coming. In fact, I've told you sometimes that the way God answers your prayers is by giving you what you would have asked for had you known what he knows. Just because it's not your plan doesn't mean it's not a good plan. And I know that for some of you control freaks, that's really bothersome because your plan is always the right plan.

But just because it's not your plan doesn't mean it's a good plan because God's plan is to mold your image into his character and to increase your faith and your delight in him so he is tearing you down in your strength so he can rebuild you in his. Which leads me to the second metaphor he uses in these verses, which is that of a father. The word used for discipline in verse five is a different one than the one in verse 11. In English, they look the same.

But in Greek, it's the word pidea from which we get our word pidiatry. It has to do with how a good father disciplines a child. A good parent disciplines his child for wrongdoing, not to pay them back for their wrongdoing, but to form their character. You know, parents, when you discipline your child, you're not trying to avenge yourselves of the wrong they did.

You will pay for that spilled milk, right? That is not supposed to be what you do with your child. Sometimes in my house, that is what happens with my children. But as a parent, you are supposed to discipline your children only in order to mold their character. What you are doing for them, you are doing in love. You might punish them in a way that wounds them in some way, but your goal is not retribution.

Your goal is the building of character. Now, the author goes on to say in verses eight, nine, and ten that no parent disciplines perfectly. I mean, sometimes as parents, we're more angered about how our child has inconvenienced us than we are concerned with their character. But God, he says, is a perfect father. And so his anger toward his children is never the anger of justice.

It is always the discipline of love. Because listen, the gospel is that God paid Jesus back 100% for your sin, which means that if you are a Christian, every drop, every ounce of punishment for sin was put upon Jesus. And for God to exact one drop of that punishment for sin from you would be unjust, because God would be demanding two punishments for the same sin.

Right? I mean, you know, if you're married, if your wife pays the power bill, and then the electric company sends you, the husband, the same bill and asks you to pay it, you respond to them, that's not fair. We already paid that bill. You're asking for two penalties for the same bill. Same with God. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, because the full condemnation fell upon Jesus. So for God to punish you in any way for your sin would be unjust, because he would be asking for two penalties for the exact same sin. That means if you are a believer, God is never, never paying you back for your sin in the hardships of your life. And see, I hear believers say that all the time. Oh, I think God is paying me back for that decision I made. I know people who feel like they are living under the curse of something that they did years ago, and they're like, well, for the rest of my life, I'm going to be cursed by this thing that God's paying me back for. Jesus absorbed all the curse for that sin. And God put entirely on the head of Jesus every ounce of punishment that you deserve so that nothing is left for you. Nothing is left for you but mercy. So I can assure you that in your pain, he is not paying you back.

He might be trying to bring you back, but that's totally different. Let me distinguish three things that people often get confused. Punishment, discipline, and consequences. Punishment or judgment, that's where you're being paid back for the wrong you've done. The code of justice was broken, you've got to pay. Discipline, that's a loving attempt to mold character.

It might involve pain, but the goal is not retribution, the goal is formation. Consequences, these are just the natural results from bad decisions. You have sex outside of marriage and the girl gets pregnant, that's not punishment per se, that's biology.

Right? You cheat on your spouse and the trust in your marriage is destroyed. You're a self-absorbed father and your kids end up estranged. You cheat, get kicked out of school, you do sloppy work and lose your job. These are all just natural consequences. Now, God can use consequences as discipline in your life, but technically you should think about them differently.

Punishment, discipline, consequences. Believers suffer consequences for their sin and sometimes God uses those consequences to discipline them, but believers never suffer punishment because Jesus was punished fully in our place so that all that is left for us is mercy. And so now God is molding your character and love, he is never punishing you in judgment.

I read a story in a book by a guy named Jared Wilson called Gospel Waitfulness, which I would highly commend to you. But in there he talks about a friend of his who made some really disastrous decisions, end up destroying his marriage, end up really harming his children. And he said after God brought me to repentance later, he said, I went back, he said, my marriage is permanently destroyed.

He said, there's no way I could repair that. He said, my kids, he said, for the rest of their lives, I feel like they're going to be dealing with this and there are some things that I'm probably never going to be able to go back on. He said, I know I've gotten forgiveness of God, he said, but these consequences of my actions, he said, they are still with me. He said, and as bitter though as those consequences are, and the fact that on earth I might never overcome them fully, he says, as bitter as they are, they remind me that the ultimate consequence for sin, which is separation from God forever and eternity and hell, that has been taken away forever. He said, so even in the bitterness of these consequences, he goes, God has enabled me to relish his grace, because while the pain of the consequence is bitter, the sweetness is that I know that the ultimate consequence for sin has been taken away forever, because God has removed his wrath for me in Christ Jesus. To the believer, listen, you've got to understand this, God is committed, he's not punishing you, but he is committed to growing you up in him, and a lot of times he uses pain and disappointment to do it. Some of you have only learned to think about God as a precious moments God who coddles you or gives you warm fuzzies, or he's, you know, even worse, a celestial pinata that you whack with a faith stick, and out come the goodies that you want from him, and you get angry at him when things aren't going your way, or you think he's forgotten you, or you just quit believing in him altogether, but God is not a celestial pinata, and he's not a fuzzy sentimental God, he is a father, his is a fatherly love, a tough love, a love that forges your character, and a love that grows you up into maturity.

Do you trust that in all things God is disciplining you as a son or daughter? That an all-knowing, all-powerful God is in control of all things and using them all for your good? Reframing our view of God today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Summit Life is here for you every day on your radio station and online thanks to the generosity of listeners like you who donate because they want to reach more people with the hope of the gospel. And when you join our family and donate today, we'll say thanks by sending you our featured resource from Pastor J.D.

It's a Bible study that follows our current teaching through the book of Hebrews, ten sessions to drive home that Jesus is worthy of our trust and devotion. Ask for your copy when you give by calling 866-335-5220 or get a copy when you donate online at jdgreer.com. While you're on the website, you'll also want to subscribe to Pastor J.D. 's blog.

The articles go in-depth with many of the topics we cover here on the broadcast. Sign up online at jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch inviting you to join us tomorrow when Pastor J.D.

continues this message about the four helps to faith. We'll see you right here Friday for Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.